Hey, You Should Play This #7: Poacher

You know Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, the guy that The Escapist pays to talk fast about how much he hates most video games?  Well, he's also an indie game devloper ( he made Trilby: The Art of Theft , 5 Days a Stranger, etc) and has just released a new game called Poacher. Follow the jump for some ramblings on it (by yours truly) and of course the link to download it!

Instead of being a text heavy adventure game made in AGS like all of Yahtzee's other games, Poacher is an action platformer Metroidvania type of game.  Not to say Poacher is light on story, it has a fair amount of cutscenes and tells a pretty interesting story of a blue collar kinda guy named Derek Badger who falls into a subterranean world (which is kind of an indie game cliche at this point, but whatever) and into the middle of a conflict between a race of spirits and the evil Dark Ones. Derek's an interesting character who speaks in a Yorkshire-type accent that the people of this underground world can barely understand, and also seems unfazed by all the ghostly goings-on.  At one point he's worried about making it home in time to tape Jonathan Creek for his wife.

The gameplay is solid-- controls are fine and the four directions of shooting works well.  The later addition of grenades adds another interesting level to combat as some enemies can only be killed by them.  The difficulty is rather steep, but really in a 2D platformer like this I consider that a good thing.  I particularly liked the elevator where you are dodging floor spikes as they rise (something we've all seen before in these games) but then adds another layer of toughness when it stars shooting rotating saw-things upwards at you that you have to dodge as well-- something I can't remember seeing in any other games.  Basically the game is pretty good and is worth your time if you want something cool and free to play.  It's like Cave Story, but Yahtzee styled.

Download it here!